Ubuntu Manpage: slabinfo - kernel slab allocator statistics

NAME

       slabinfo - kernel slab allocator statistics

SYNOPSIS

       cat /proc/slabinfo

DESCRIPTION

Frequently used objects in the Linux kernel (buffer heads, inodes, dentries, etc.) have
their own cache. The file /proc/slabinfo gives statistics on these caches. The following
(edited) output shows an example of the contents of this file:

$ sudo cat /proc/slabinfo
# name <active_objs> <num_objs> <objsize> <objperslab> <pagesperslab> ...
...

The first line of output includes a version number, which allows an application that is
reading the file to handle changes in the file format. (See VERSIONS, below.) The next
line lists the names of the columns in the remaining lines.

Each of the remaining lines displays information about a specified cache. Following the
cache name, the output shown in each line shows three components for each cache:

* statistics

* tunables

* slabdata

The statistics are as follows:

active_objs
The number of objects that are currently active (i.e., in use).

num_objs
The total number of allocated objects (i.e., objects that are both in use and not
in use).

objsize
The size of objects in this slab, in bytes.

objperslab
The number of objects stored in each slab.

pagesperslab
The number of pages allocated for each slab.

The tunables entries in each line show tunable parameters for the corresponding cache.
When using the default SLUB allocator, there are no tunables, the /proc/slabinfo file is
not writable, and the value 0 is shown in these fields. When using the older SLAB
allocator, the tunables for a particular cache can be set by writing lines of the
following form to /proc/slabinfo:

# echo 'name limit batchcount sharedfactor' > /proc/slabinfo

Here, name is the cache name, and limit, batchcount, and sharedfactor are integers
defining new values for the corresponding tunables. The limit value should be a positive
value, batchcount should be a positive value that is less than or equal to limit, and
sharedfactor should be nonnegative. If any of the specified values is invalid, the cache
settings are left unchanged.

The tunables entries in each line contain the following fields:

limit The maximum number of objects that will be cached.

batchcount
On SMP systems, this specifies the number of objects to transfer at one time when
refilling the available object list.

sharedfactor
[To be documented]

The slabdata entries in each line contain the following fields:

active_slabs
The number of active slabs.

nums_slabs
The total number of slabs.

sharedavail
[To be documented]

Note that because of object alignment and slab cache overhead, objects are not normally
packed tightly into pages. Pages with even one in-use object are considered in-use and
cannot be freed.

Kernels configured with CONFIG_DEBUG_SLAB will also have additional statistics fields in
each line, and the first line of the file will contain the string "(statistics)". The
statistics field include : the high water mark of active objects; the number of times
objects have been allocated; the number of times the cache has grown (new pages added to
this cache); the number of times the cache has been reaped (unused pages removed from this
cache); and the number of times there was an error allocating new pages to this cache.

VERSIONS

       The  /proc/slabinfo  file first appeared in Linux 2.1.23.  The file is versioned, and over
       time there have been a number of versions with different layouts:

       1.0    Present throughout the Linux 2.2.x kernel series.

       1.1    Present in the Linux 2.4.x kernel series.

       1.2    A format that was briefly present in the Linux 2.5 development series.

       2.0    Present in Linux 2.6.x kernels up to and including Linux 2.6.9.

       2.1    The current format, which first appeared in Linux 2.6.10.

NOTES

       Only root can read  and  (if  the  kernel  was  configured  with  CONFIG_SLAB)  write  the
       /proc/slabinfo file.

       The  total amount of memory allocated to the SLAB/SLUB cache is shown in the Slab field of
       /proc/meminfo.

COLOPHON